


Deluded Assumptions

by Iantheforlornwriter



Series: Of Father And Son Universe [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Delusion, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gay, Gen, M/M, Mass Effect - Freeform, Prothean, Romance, Self-Hatred, deluded, kaidan - Freeform, life - Freeform, male shepard - Freeform, self fulfilment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7026661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iantheforlornwriter/pseuds/Iantheforlornwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liara has a talk with Kaidan after being disappointed in the way Javik represented Protheans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deluded Assumptions

Liara wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of the Protheans being a militaristic, authoritative dictatorship. She had dedicated over a hundred years of her life faithfully studying them. She had spent countless amount of hours on dig sites, trapped in dig sites and surviving in dig sites just appreciating the refined ways of her idols. They were a sort of monument, and it was true that the Asari placed them on tall standing pedestals. So tall in fact, it was no wonder that it all came crashing down. They were more than that; Liara was so entirely sure of it. They were the epitome of a highly functioning, peaceful, knowledgable species that every other species should and had to look up to. The Hanar had the right mind to think of them as the enklinders. Even their main means of transport to other clusters of the Galaxy: the Mass Relays, were all leftover Prothean technology. It was to her utmost disappointment then that the only living, last of his kind Prothean was nothing more than an aggressive warrior who placed violence before thought; who placed brawn before brains. Javik threw everything she had spent her life researching, her whole life admiring right out the window. She wasn't willing to admit how unhappy she was; how utterly crushed she felt. Instead, she wrote it in journal entries she kept beside her Shadow Broker terminal.

Liara laughed at how naive she was those fifty to sixty years ago. The blue skinned, bright eyed Asari who thought everything was right in the world; who thought that the Protheans were ones to look up to. They were nothing more than barbarians, pulling the strings of ’primitive’ races (as Javik had put it more than once) to meet their every whim and fancy. Barbarians who warred like prehistoric caveman fighting for territory. She scoffed at the way her younger, immature self talked about them as though they were Gods to be worshipped. There was nothing worth to worship here; no sort of redeeming value at all. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kaidan's voice chimed from her omnitool. The sympathetic spectre waited for her response, his voice full of care and worry. He was always like this, taking the extra mile; the extra step to ensure each and every one of his crew members were doing well. It wasn't to her surprise then that he reminded her of the Commander. Perhaps that was the reason why they were currently together. She found it funny how only two weeks earlier, they were pointing a gun at each other and now they were lovers. She felt a minimal tinge of shame as she had forgotten she was on call with him. He had called her only a few minutes ago, wanting to ask her if she was doing alright.

"Shepard already did. You don't have to worry about me, Kaidan." Liara replied after a moments' pause. He scoffed at her answer. He knew she wasn't being truthful about it. Ever since she became the Shadow Broker, Liara has been keeping to herself. He couldn't help but think of it as a working hazard in her line of work. It turned the innocent, gullible Asari into an individual filled with contempt and skepticism. It has made her untrusting, self reliant and alone. That's what he hated about it most. Feron was the prime candidate for her; for a romance. She wasn't interested he gathered from his talks with Shepard; she was too into her work as the Shadow Broker, it gave her power. And it was this very power that was poisoning -no, slowly corrupting the honest, unblemished woman he used to know. Has it only been three years? Could someone change so drastically in just three years? When he had made the remark about dinosaurs on Eden Prime before they had discovered the source of her grief he was trying to encourage her to talk about at this very moment, he noticed a glimmer of her old self still lingering within her, begging to come out. He could see the sinless Asari, so easily tricked into believing he didn't know the difference between palaeontology and archaeology. 

He couldn't blame her though. Not one bit. The reason she became who she was today was for the very fact Kaidan still believed there was hope left in the world; it was to bring Shepard back from the dead. 

"Of course I worry, Liara. Shepard didn't tell me much anyway. He said he respected your privacy enough not to tell me." 

"Maybe you should listen to him then." She said with increasing frustration. 

"Liara..." Kaidan drawled, concern evident in his voice. 

"Fine. It's Javik." She sighed, shifting all her weight to her left leg as she crossed her arms against her chest. 

"Is he giving you a hard time?" She could see Kaidan shifting in his seat too. It was only with further inspection that she noticed he wasn't sitting in the Starboard Observation Deck. It looked more like a bed. The bed in the cabin. Shepard's bed. She couldn't help but smile.

"Doesn't he always?" 

"That's true. There's this sort of...glance he gives you. Like-" Liara interrupted him mid-sentence. 

"Like we are all beneath him." 

"Exactly. It’s honestly-" she interrupted him again.

"Unnerving?" 

"Yeah, majorly creepy." Kaidan noticed she wasn't finished elaborating. "Anything else besides his death stares that makes you uncomfortable with him?" 

"It's not him, exactly." She sighed before she continued. A forceful expelling of air so strong, so assertive; he was sure it would've made the Normandy rock just a little. "It's this whole idea of Protheans being scholars or knowledgable individuals." 

"So, not how you imagined they'd be." 

"I spent my whole life studying them, Kaidan. I'm a hundred and eight and I've spent most of those years in dig sites, discovering artefacts that I was so sure showed how they really lived-"

"And you're disappointed that Javik is the very embodiment of violence?" 

"And slavery." Liara shifted her weight to her right leg now. Her left leg was starting to fall asleep; pins and needles started to form and prick around her skin. "Is it that obvious?" 

"With all the Prothean talk you make during our free time and three years ago when we first found you? It's not hard to assume you were bewildered by them." 

"I see. Thank you for your insight, Kaidan," she said. Her head clearer now than it was earlier. It was still aching from the overthinking and the non self-fulfilment, but it was definitely better now.

"Well, hey. I doubted Shepard for so long. It almost ended up with us shooting one another." 

"Yes, what's your point?" 

"What I'm trying to say is this: stop doubting yourself. Stop believing you lived your earlier years based on lies. They were just...false assumptions." 

"I don't get what you're trying to say." 

"As in, stop it before you point a gun at yourself. Both figuratively and literally." 

"You're saying I shouldn't let it get to me?"

"Exactly. Just, live in the now. Get to know Javik as him and not based on your assumption on how every Prothean should be like." 

"It's a little difficult when he keeps talking about every one of us as primitives."

"Hey, I didn't say it'll be easy." 

"Thank you, Kaidan. And say hello to Shepard for me." 

A disgruntled voice came from her omnitool, sputtering and guttering like a ship core running out of power. "How'd you know?" 

"I'm a very good information broker." 

"Yeah, just remind me to never leave anything out in the open for you." 

"There won't be any promises, Major." 

The glowing, orange border that framed Kaidan's image dispersed into a spark of nothingness as he ended the video call. Perhaps what he had said to her was true; perhaps it was time to get to know Javik as himself and not based on her studies on them. She decided, it was to her best interest -their best interest, if she would to call him now and reintroduce herself. She didn't want the image of herself to be someone that was needy or overly enthusiastic to him. 

She steadied herself against the makeshift Shadow Broker console she had installed with Glyph (the blue ball of a servant) after escaping the ship with Feron. The multiple monitors all stared back at her like a million different pair of eyes, digging their way into her very soul; trying to excavate whatever guilt she still felt inside; whatever innocence she still had for the world and air it out to dry under the harsh sun of reality. 

Making her way to the bed at the back of the room, Liara pushed a button on her omnitool, calling Javik on his newly installed omnitool he had recently gotten on the citadel after the attempted Ceberus coup. He answered after the third attempt.

"Javik?" 

"Asari." He replied in his thick, Jamaican accent, with a hint of contempt in his tone of voice.

With that, Liara told herself she would have a lot of obstacles to get through before she'd be able to even talk to him as friends.


End file.
